In the wake of the Jet-Etihad deal, demands have come from various countries for bilateral deals.
Disclosing this here on Friday, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said, “We are looking into them.’’
While India had discussed the issue with Oman, it had already concluded such a deal with Singapore, he added. “We have done it with Abu Dhabi also,’’ he pointed out. There was lot of discussion about this, he added
He said during the last one-and-half year, 80,000 seats were allocated to Indian carriers for their operations in Gulf countries and Singapore.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function organised by FICCI to announce the schedule of the ‘India Aviation 2014’, a five-day exhibition and air show to be held in March next year at Hyderabad, Mr. Singh said the six grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners of Air India could be back in the skies by the middle of this month. Inspections were on to fix the battery problem, and local flights were expected to take off after that, he added.
Engineers from Boeing were working on sorting out the battery issue, he said. “They take about a week for each plane. So, by mid-May, we expect to resume local flights of the Dreamliners,” he added.
The six Dreamliners were grounded on January 16 after a global directive by U.S. regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to stop operations of all the 50 such planes delivered so far to various airlines. This had impacted Air India’s international operations, forcing it to deploy B-777s on routes being serviced by B-787.
To a question, he said the Civil Aviation Ministry would clear the application of AirAsia (India) to launch its operations in the country as soon as it submitted all the required data.
Revival plan
On the revival plan submitted by the Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines, he said the proposals had not yet satisfied the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
“The DGCA has to be satisfied that Kingfisher can have a safe and sustainable operation. So far, they have not given a plan which DGCA considers safe and sustainable. What I have seen is that the DGCA said that it is not a complete revival and not a satisfactory plan,’’ he added.
